


Too Soon To Say I'm Sorry

by flashwitch



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Balance Arc, Gen, Lucretia Angst, Mention of Character Death, PTSD, Spoilers, Stolen Century, but they got better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-03 10:21:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12746373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashwitch/pseuds/flashwitch
Summary: After that year alone, Lucretia changes.





	Too Soon To Say I'm Sorry

**Author's Note:**

> "And you’ve all had difficulties on this journey, but you’ve never been alone before, not like this. You never knew that weight. And Lucretia lived with it, along with all the other challenges that this world threw at her every day for a year.
> 
> And she was different after that, in a way that made the rest of you proud. She never volunteered to stay back with the ship again. She spent less time chronicling your journey and more time participating in it. She became fierce and confident and decisive. She wouldn't go on to found the Bureau of Balance for decades still, but this, this horrible lonely year, this is when Lucretia became Madam Director."
> 
> The Adventure Zone, Episode 65: Stolen Century Chapter 6.

Lucretia still loves the crew. She still trusts the crew.

But…

There is something inside her, something small and sharp and dark, a little voice at the back of her head. It doesn’t reset with everything else each cycle. It’s just there.

It says ‘Are you sure?’. It says ‘is that the right way?’. It says ‘You don’t have to listen to them.’

And she ignores it because it is small and she is not. And she loves the crew and she trusts the crew and after all, she’s just there to write things down. Davenport is the Captain. He knows best.  

And it’s strange having them all around again. She never noticed how loud they all are. When it was just her and Fisher, everything was quiet and still, and she doesn’t miss that, the endless silence, but it is hard hearing all of their voices again.

She puts herself forward more, she’s not as scared, she speaks up and her voice is not as loud as theirs but they listen anyway.

 

* * *

 

 

It doesn’t happen all at once. There isn’t a moment where she breaks and says ‘no, do it my way’. It’s little things, over the cycles.

It’s Lup, teasing her. The same way she teases everybody. The same way she teases Taako and Barry for goodness sake. It’s loving and silly and Lup makes fun of herself as much as she does everyone else and it’s never been meant maliciously.

But one day Lup is teasing her, prodding her to come outside and pick fruit and she will go eventually but she is writing and it’s important, Lup. And Lup calls her a nerd and something pings through her. Something cold. The small, sharp, dark thing that’s lived in her heart since That Cycle speaks up. It says, ‘you all died and I was alone’. It says, ‘a nerd would have died, a nerd wouldn’t have saved you’. It says, ‘shut your useless mouth.’

And Lucretia, she is appalled. She feels heat rush to her cheeks. Lup is her friend. Her sister. The crew are family. She goes to her room and reminds herself that she is just one member of the crew. That they love her and she loves them. That Lup doesn’t mean anything, and they _are_ all nerds. IPRE only accepts nerds, had been the joke back in the day. It had started when Taako had asked Magnus what a Jock was doing signing up for Planer Travel. There were no Fantasy Sportsball teams in space!

Later she finds them all outside and Lup pulls her over and Taako throws her one of that Not Apples that they’d picked and she took a bite. It tasted sweet and slightly floral and she smiled. For a little while she could pretend she was one of them still.

 

* * *

 

 

The next time it happens, it’s Davenport. They are on the planet Magnus has dubbed Puppytown and the Hunger is coming. They have the Light, but a lot of these dogs are going to die.

“We get as many on board as we can, we can save lives!”

“And have how many more mouths to feed? And we can’t bring them home. It would be cruel, Magnus.”

And the little voice snaps out ‘so we just leave them? They’re helpless. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’ And she just stops, frozen for a moment. Because Davenport is the captain. He knows what he’s talking about. Of course he does.

But…

These are puppies. Surely they could save a few…

“Magnus, fine. We’ll take what we can, but if there isn’t a safe place for them in the next cycle, that’s on your head.”

And so they take on the dogs and drop them off at the next place and it’s fine. It’s all fine. Davenport made the right decision, he just needs time to think of all the consequences. You can’t press him into doing what you want.

And it’s fine.

 

* * *

 

 

The next time it’s something ridiculous.

They are having a good cycle. They found the light early. The world they’re on is quiet and mostly peaceful and they’ve made a niche for themselves and it is nice. They’re all enjoying it.

It starts off differently this time, or maybe she’s just relaxed enough to notice it starting this time. Her skin feels tight. They are too loud, too close. She clenches her hands and takes a slow deep breath. She backs up to sit a little way away, where she is still part of everything, but everything isn’t so close.

She fiddles with her necklace and tries to relax. There is no need to be on edge here. She is safe. She is with the crew. Everything is fine.

Then Merle drops unexpectedly into the seat beside her and her carefully curated calm is cracked open.

‘They don’t know’, the small sharp thing says. ‘They don’t know what you’ve been through. They have no idea.’ And Merle is talking too, saying something about something, she isn’t sure what, there’s a ringing in her ears. ‘You are stronger than all of them’.

And she has to get up, she has to get away, and she hurries an apology to the cleric and heads off out of the way.

 

* * *

 

 

She never talks about that cycle. That year. She never talks about being alone. About hiding and running and fighting and having to plan and do everything by herself. She doesn’t talk about how she had been shot in the leg with one of those strange weapons and how she’s had to patch herself up silently hiding in an alley behind a doctor’s surgery. She doesn’t talk about watching the Hunger descend and thinking ‘good.’

She doesn’t talk about how she hadn’t been sure that she could survive.  

Some nights she wakes up screaming, but that isn’t unusual. They all have nights like that.

She doesn’t tell them she feels responsible for them, because that is ridiculous, right? She is younger than everyone except Magnus. She is not strong, she is not a leader, she is just there to write the story. She isn’t supposed to be a hero.

 

* * *

 

 

And then Lup has an **Idea**. And it is a dangerous idea. She can see that it isn’t going to work. Or if it does work, it will have consequences. So she tells them her idea. And she is proud of her idea, she really believes it will work.

But it was doomed before she even started speaking. They all see her as an innocent little sister. As someone to be protected and ignored.

That isn’t fair. She knows it isn’t fair. But it’s how she feels and she can’t help that.

Besides, as soon as it was Lup who came up with it, Lucretia knew it was useless to argue. She tries anyway, because she needs to, but she knows it’s hopeless. Because Lup will have Taako and Barry on her side as a given. And the three of them are good at talking and they are good at getting people to listen, and between the three of them all they need to do is persuade one more to get a majority. She would have to persuade all three of the others by herself.

So, when they decide exactly as she knows they would, she goes along. She creates her own relic. She hopes it might work. She hopes she’s wrong.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

She’s not wrong.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The plan ‘works’ for a given value of ‘works’.

It’s afterwards that everything goes wrong.

And she is very good. She doesn’t say ‘I told you so’ even though she did. She hates this. She hates that  the things they have put out into the world have caused such turmoil. She hates seeing the crew so defeated, so broken. They are still trying to act like this is a victory but she has seen Barry crying more than once, Taako is being _quiet¸_ Davenport has been spending more and more time alone.  Lup is just… gone They are falling apart.

She just wants to help. She _knows_ her plan would work. She isn’t stupid. She isn’t young or innocent. Not anymore.

She just… she can fix this. She can’t fix the nightmares, she can’t fix all the places they’ve lost, she can’t make everything better. But she can fix this. She can make it so they don’t feel bad. She can perfect her plan.

She can do this.

They’ll thank her when all is said and done. She knows they will.

 

They have to.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Now with a wonderful podfic by RevolutionaryJo as part of the Awesome Ladies Podfic Anthology! Find it here: https://amplificathon.dreamwidth.org/3180853.html

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Too Soon To Say I'm Sorry](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13769928) by [RevolutionaryJo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RevolutionaryJo/pseuds/RevolutionaryJo)




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